Diversification
by Syril Silverleaf
Summary: Even in the 23rd century, Starfleet is manned mostly by humans. THe powers that be in the Federation are calling for a change. So a Certain Admiral take it upon himself to recruit a more diverse class for the Academy. Not from Pikes POV but rather-an OC!


AN- Please be kind as this is the first fic I've ever even pondered for this fandom. I'm a new fan for it. I've watched a few random episode of the old series, and I love the movie, but anywho...This is told from an OC's point of view, and so in this chapter thers is a lot of characterization for her. Tell me what you think and if i should continue it, plz. =D

Disclaimer: DO NOT OWN.

Chapter One: The Requisite Introductory Chapter

"We're getting married."

So…what do you know about bombs? I feel as through I know quite a bit about them, considering my mother just dropped one, in to the middle of my life. From what I know, parents tend to do that a lot to their teenaged children.

I slowly looked from my mother, to her boyfriend- ahem, _fiancé-_ and then back to her.

My mother was chewing her lip, sitting absolutely straight, and clinging to her man with one arm while the other was fisted tightly into my maroon comforter. I understood her nervousness, I mean I didn't exactly have a reputation for a calm and accepting nature. I understood his stoic façade, too. He was Starfleet, after all. What I didn't understand was why they had felt the need to break the news to me in my room of all places.

I mean, it was tiny enough with just me, my bed and my computer in here. And now I had the two adult-sized people in here when on a good day I could touch two walls just by stretching vigorously. And I am far from being adult-sized.

"Ace?"

My mother's worried question jerked my out of my reverie. I looked at her.

My mom is actually a very pretty woman. She's got those fair good looks that the media just loves, all pale and icy, with very big blue eyes. She's not even that old…what is she…thirty-two? Her fiancé isn't that bad either. He's okay-looking, darker, closer to my own coloring. I suppose that implies that he looks like my dad. Go, Mom, for being consistent.

They make a good couple. Jonathan and Marianna St. Cyre. Has a nice ring to it, don't it? Can't you just hear to bells?

The happy couple was sitting side-by-side on my bed, while I sat in my desk chair, feet curled under me. I blinked at them once. "Cool," I said.

It was my mother's turn to blink now. "Cool?" she echoed. "What, no fits, no swearing? Just like that?"

I tilted my head to the side while I searched myself. I felt a little startled, a little angry, vaguely disgusted, but I knew that these were more perfunctory reaction than anything else. I nodded slowly. "Yeah."

The tension melted out of both of them. My mother let out a little laugh, releasing my comforter to wipe at a few strands of hair that had come out of her pony tail. "Okay," she said. "Alright. Cool."

I nodded and looked towards 'Jonathan-call-me-Jon' as I had come to think of him. He looked as relieved as my mother.

"Well," Mom continued. "We'll just get going then. Have a nice night." She pulled her new fiancé to his feet and began pulling him from my room, smiling widely and clutching Jonathan-call-me-Jon's arm. "I'll see you in the morning."

I spun around in my chair to watch them go.

Jonathan-call-me-Jon paused at the door, and I looked at him, up at him. He loomed. I raised a single eye brow at him.

"Bye-bye," my mom said.

I will go to my grave saying it was a trick of the poor lighting characteristic of my room that made my think that Jonathan-call-me-Jon mouthed 'thank you' before the door was shut behind him.

I stared silently at the white door, waiting for the maelstrom to hit, the whirring tides of emotions that I had been blessed with by my less-than-human heritage. I felt….nothing.

"You're welcome." I told the silence.

There should be some kind of a support group for girls like me. The Support Group for Teenage Girls with Wedding-Neurotic Mother. We could call ourselves TSGTWNM.

"How about this color, Ace? It would go wonderfully with your eyes."

I starred in horror at the cut of fabric my mother had brought up on the screen, my spoon half to my mouth. My brain went: Kkkkrisssshhhhhnagherrough…. The picture I stared at was so very….Pink. I thought, I'm already wearing a dress for you, isn't that enough, woman?

"It will look absolutely darling on Jon's nieces. They're the flower girls, you know."

I was sitting in our kitchen, eating breakfast with my mother, and feeling thoroughly bored. It was May and rightfully I should have been at school. But the administration at my old high school had taken a inexplicable dislike to my person two weeks ago. Who knew that smacking someone over the head with a lunch tray was so frowned upon. And thus, I was stuck at home, with my mother, as she puttered away at her translations, and set the finishing touches on her upcoming wedding ceremony. Sadly this included helping her decide on colors, like we were doing now. I say 'we' but what I really mean is that she picks through all the possibilities, while I watch in abstract horror.

Our two bedroom apartment is so small and sparsely furnished that it hadn't even taken me three days to finish packing it in preparation for the approaching move to San Francisco to live with my mother and her soon-to-be-husband. I wished that I had been smart enough to drag it out longer. Now, I had nothing to do but "help" my mother.

"Nn." I grunted in response to my mother. Anyone who said that planning a wedding wasn't a smaller version of hell, had obviously never had to deal with a bride. Say what you want, but I was being punished, of the cruel and unusual persuasion.

"But I do love the purple…."

I turned to my bowl of cereal as my mother fussed over the screen of the catalogue. She didn't really need me, and the only reason she made me help at all, was because she actually was punishing me. Expulsion is not something that most parents enjoy dealing with.

Though to be fair, the incident hadn't entirely been my fault.

I had been sitting alone, quietly eating my lunch and nursing the mother loving headache that I usually had around that time of day. Crowds always give me them. The emotions of too many people at once, and my brain trying to breaks the hoard apart and all that. Then, out of the blue (not really), some dick senior in my lit. class had grabbed my arm. This wouldn't have been all that bad, but for that I hadn't been wearing my hoodie, like an idiot, and got the full force of his emotions on me. Let me tell you, the empathy sucks in most situations, but when you get physical contact on top of that it feels like your eyeballs are going to explode out of your head, while the rest of you submits to sporadic flailing of the extremities.

The senior of laughed and leaned down all close, saying (maybe) "***, you're ****, wanna **** and go ****ing?" Or something. I hadn't been paying too close attention on account of the whole exploding eyeballs thing. So I bashed his face with my lunch tray and got him to let go of me.

That was when the vice principle had walked in a fit on account of an unconscious student and all the blood all over the floor. The they kicked me out, and frankly, I don't regret it much. I've never been a big one for school.

I finished my cereal, and drank the remaining milk with a loud slurp, and went to place it in the sink as my mother said "Oh my, Ace come look at this orange!"

I sighed. Three more weeks seemed like an eternity full of horrendous colors and ridiculous dresses. Hell.

Three weeks later I found myself in San Francisco, in scorching hot weather, yet wearing my bad-touch clothing. You know, full on jeans, combat boots, long sleeve tee under loose hooded jacket with a raven on the back. I also wore a pair of sleek sunglasses that blocked out every ounce of painful sunlight, until the city around me was a dim, thrumming hive, wiggling around and tickling my brain inside my skull, as it throbbed merrily in tune with my heart beat.

The glasses had been a gift that I had received yesterday upon my arrival in the city. From Jonathan-call-me-Jon, actually. After an adequately sickly-sweet reunion between the happy couple, he had dug a small box out of his uniform pants and presented it to me, one arm extended, the other still wrapped around my smiling mother.

"Here," he'd said. "Your mother said you got headaches."

I given my mother a withering look, and received my own in return, as I reached out to accept the box. As I began opening it I got the insane image of my mother, myself and Jonathan-call-me-Jon sitting in a cozy, living room lit by firelight, them sitting on a couch, him in uniform, her in pearls and an apron, and me in short pants and a sailor top, hair cut short, frolicking with a dog and all of us smiling blindingly…. Shit, I thought. I was so not digging the Little-Jimmy-Dick-and-Jane look.

I shook my head as the glasses had fallen into my hand.

Jonathan-call-me-Jon had cleared his throat, making me look up at him. It was funny now, but he had been blushing. "They're proto-types. Supposed to cancel light out in the presence of too much, and promote it in the dark, so that the world through them will look the same no matter when. We're going to give them to the fleet, to use in more delicate situations, where our normal equipment for night vision and such would be a little too… obscene."

I looked back down at the glasses, wowed by his thoughtfulness. See, he was a good guy. I was unsure what to say, but was saved from have to express my gratitude in so many flowery, useless words. My mom began to reveal the battle plan that would be the wedding.

Now, the next morning, I was waiting in front of the bridal store, where my mother and Jonathan-call-me-Jon were picking up the finishing touches to the ceremony, otherwise known as my dress. I was waiting outside for her to be done, in an effort to avoid having to try the damned thing on.

A black car, narrow and incredibly military-looking, pulled up in front of the store and a pale man got out, dressed in those spiffy, sleek suits worn by officers in Starfleet. On older man, I'd say late forties, in grays and crèmes, and walking with a shiny metal cane. He walked towards the entrance of the store behind me, and I braced myself for the storm of his emotions, as he would come very close to me.

The brush of his over my mind was slow and cool, unexpectedly….even. With most people it took me weeks of close contact for them to feel emotionally smooth. The smoothness, like stepping into a cool bath on a balmy night, washed over me. I felt myself shiver despite my top to toe covering. The smoothness was nice. So, so nice. Like kittens, or ice cream, or classical music, or….Cardassian fish juice.

I closed my eyes letting the smoothness block out the rest and determined to enjoy it as long as possible.

Oh, look it, long as possible was actually longer than expected….

I opened my eyes and looked slowly over. The Starfleet man had stopped.

I blinked slowly, thinking, god please don't let this be the beginning of some sort of proposition…. Or _recruitment. _

He smiled down a me, with warm brown eyes and a narrow nose. He looked as smooth as he empathically felt, but maybe a little grayer. He nodded at me and asked "How do they work?"

I blinked at him silently. Then I remembered that he couldn't see this and so it would not be adequate response. I tried hard to think of something to say and come up with a whopping nothing. What were you expected to say to some unknown, probably high-ranking Starfleet officer. It tried to think what I had said when I first met Jonathan-call-me-Jon….I hadn't said anything, just nodded my acknowledgement of his presence.

"Admiral."

The Starfleet guy turned towards the voice, and smile a greeting. "St. Cyre." He turned to my mother and smiled wider, "Mari."

My mother was the one who had spoken. She was flushed, and pleased, one arm, as always, wrapped around Jonathan-call-me-Jon. She smiled up at the Starfleet guy, apparently and Admiral. Jonathan-call-me-Jon stood stiff and tall, with a silver zipped up…tarp-thing that hung from a hanger tossed over one arm. My dress.

Wait a minute…..MARI?

I whipped my head around and gave the admiral a closer scrutiny.

"I do hope you're not trying to get out of the wedding, Admiral." My mother spoke firmly, but her mocking eyes belied any real emotion.

The situation wasn't that bad actually… The throbbing buzz of the people around our little group was bare perceptible to me in current company…Two people was were smooth to me and one who was on his way to it… Maybe this admiral would see fit to move in with us? Jonathan-call-me-Jon's quarters at the Starfleet Academy were large enough….

"Not at all, Mari. I was just speaking to you daughter about the glasses."

The three adults turned to me I got the sudden image of this admiral joining the Little-Jimmy-Dick-and-Jane mental image, sitting on the couch with my mother and Jonathan-call-me-Jon, and we were all smiling so very big…. I looked back at them blankly from behind the glasses in question. "Fantastic," I blurted out.

The two men looked sot of perplexed, but my mother just tilted her head to the side, as she always did when waiting for me to explain myself.

"The glasses," I said in further explanation.

Understanding dawned on them all.

My mother decided to make it worse then by introducing us, me and the admiral. "Admiral Christopher Pike, may I introduce my daughter, Acenath? We call her Ace, more commonly."

The admiral smiled down at me. "You look like you father."

I was surprised by this though I knew I shouldn't have been. My father had been in Starfleet after all. I nodded in response. In case you haven't notice yet, these are pretty much my two forms of communication- blinking and nodding-besides one word answers.

"Sorry, Admiral, but we've got to get going. We'll see you at the rehearsal tomorrow?"

The Admiral smiled and nodded. "Definitely."

Rehearsal…..rehearsal….

"It was nice meeting you Ace." The admiral looked directly into my eyes. Or not, considering he couldn't logically know if I was even looking back or not…. "I hope we'll get the chance to talk more tomorrow."

I frowned deeply at him. That was recruitment talk that was. Yeah, when hell freezes over.

I realized after the silence that fell on the adults that I had said that last out loud. Oopsies.

Admiral Christopher Pike didn't seem all that offended tough, just nodded to us all and walked into the store.

My mother was horrified, and let me know so as soon as Pike left, but Jonathan-call-me-Jon seemed rather amused. We climbed into his car, my mother first t drive, and he held the door for me in the back.

"Don't feel bad." he told me quietly. "Pike has the record for most cadets personally recruited. I'm sure he's heard worse."

I vaguely doubted that , but I nodded anyways and ducked into the car. No matter how hellish the next few days were going to be, I got the feeling that they might have become a little more interesting.


End file.
